“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:1-5).
Isaiah was a prophet of God who lived some 700 years before Jesus’ birth. His prophetic writings are found in the Old Testament book titled by His name. In it are more prophetic teachings regarding the coming of the promised Messiah, who we now know to be Jesus Christ, than any other Old Testament book (Isaiah 7:14) (Isaiah 9:6-7) (Isaiah 42:1-9) (Isaiah 53:1-12) (Isaiah 61:1-3).
In Chapter 6, Isaiah has an encounter with one whom he identifies as “the King, The Lord of hosts”, the exalted ruler of the universe – the Lord of Glory described in Psalm 24:7-10, who is now reigning at the right hand of God in Heaven and who will return one day to this earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords to establish His eternal kingdom, namely the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 1:17) (Daniel 7:13-14) Revelation 19:11-16).
Isaiah was likely the most righteous, God besotted of all men on the earth at the time of this encounter. But when this man of God comes into the visible presence of a being of unimaginable beauty and majesty, a being too wonderful, too marvelous, too awesome for comprehension, beyond anything he had ever encountered, he is overwhelmed not just with awe and wonder, but with shame and guilt such that the only thing he can think about doing is pronouncing a curse of death upon himself and confessing his sin before this one who is proclaimed by the angelic host as Holy, Holy, Holy – whose glory – the outshining of that holiness, fills the whole earth, a glory that is further evidenced in the heavens (Psalm 19:1-6).
There is no other divine attribute thrice repeated like this in scripture other than His holiness, which is again thrice proclaimed by heavenly beings in Revelation 4:8. It never says that God is love, love, love, (that was the Beatles), nor does it say that God is wise, wise, wise, nor powerful, powerful, powerful, nor righteous, righteous, righteous. And it never says that God is nice, nice, nice, which is the theology of liberal Christianity.
When scripture says that God is holy, holy, holy, it is pointing to the superlative nature, the transcendent preeminence and infinite perfections of the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The term holiness represents the greatness and immeasurable value of God’s divine person and majestic being, as well as His exalted position as the eternal, self-existent, self-sufficient, self-determining Creator and Sovereign ruler of the universe. It represents all of the excellencies of His being – His transcendent and infinite goodness, His infinite wisdom and power and most importantly His moral purity, all of the excellencies of His person that distinctly make Him God – and us not God (Isaiah 55:8-9) (Romans 11:33-36).
Holiness describes His glorious and mysterious otherness- that which (should) make Him the object of our awe and adoration, our reverential fear and desire as well as of our deepest love, and devotion – the supreme object of our worship and the source of our eternal joy (Psalm 96:9).
Thus, just as holiness is the self-defining characteristic or identifying trait of God, it is and must be the defining characteristic or identifying trait of God’s people, His true children (Romans 8:14) (1 Thessalonians 4:7). Only holy beings can exist in God’s presence – only holy beings are capable of enjoying the infinite and ever diverse delights and pleasures God created us to enjoy that are found only in and through Him (Psalm 16:11).
In creating Adam and Eve in His image and likeness, God created them holy, meaning that they were set above and apart from the rest of creation for intimate communion with Him (John 17:3) (Psalm 8:4-8). They were not created infinitely or immutably holy as He is, but in such a way that they could live in His unveiled presence, in intimate communion with Him, forever enjoying His infinite goodness, as well as themselves imaging God’s glory – the perfections of His being for the enjoyment, pleasure and satisfaction of all of God’s creation in Him.
It was thus God’s design and command that they would live as holy beings, morally pure, reproducing by God’s power a race of holy beings who were set apart – above the rest of the creation, exercising dominion over it, able to see the face of God, and thus enjoy forever what God enjoys most – namely God (Genesis 1:26-28) (Psalm 27:4) (Psalm 27:8-9).
In Genesis 3:1-24 we see the tragedy and corruption of sin, man’s opposition to God’s purpose and rule over our lives, beginning with Adam and Eve believing the devil’s lie and disobeying God’s one command. One act of defiance and distrust of the holy God immediately corrupts their nature and physical appearance wherein they/we no longer imaged the beauty and excellence of the holiness of God. They immediately experienced shame, hiding themselves from each other, and fear, wherein they hid themselves from God. Rather than acknowledging and repenting of their sin, Adam blames God and Eve blames the devil. They had now become unholy – darkness filled their souls and they became incapable of fulfilling the purpose for which they were created which was to glorify God by enjoying Him forever (Ephesians 4:18-19) (Isaiah 43:7).
Their un holiness was so offensive, so vile, so abhorrent to our most Holy God, that we read in Genesis 3:24, that God, in an act of holy justice, “drove” them out of His gracious presence. That word drove denotes an immediate and forceful eviction from the beauty, magnificence and glory of the garden paradise they enjoyed fellowship with Him in, into the cursed and hostile and deadly environment of this present evil world (Genesis 3:17-19) (Galatians 1:4). God uses the image of an angel with a flaming sword to represent His holy judgment on what amounted to an act of cosmic treason; an act that resulted in mankind joining the devil in willful rebellion against the holy person and purposes of God and thus taking upon ourselves the unholy nature and character of a child of the devil rather than that of a child of God, and thus being subject to the same eternal destiny (John 8:44) (1 John 3:10) (Matthew 25:41).
But God, in holy love, will not leave all mankind in this desperate, dire and helpless condition, as throughout human history He would and has, by His holy wisdom and power, redeemed a people unto holiness, many who are now already with Him in Heaven, standing in His unmediated presence, before His throne, worshiping (Revelation 4:8-11) (Revelation 5:8-14).
There, we again have the holy angels proclaiming Holy! Holy! Holy! in reference to the Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”, the One who redeemed by His shed blood a people from every nation, language, culture and ethnic group. This is God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory that Isaiah saw sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, who humbled Himself by coming into this world as a man (Philippians 2:5-8). And as a man, after living a holy, sinless life, He died on a Roman cross so that all who will come to Him for forgiveness of their sins, pursuing holiness in the fear of God, without which no one will ever be part of this holy congregation of worshipers who will see God and delight in His shining face forever (Galatians 2:20) (Ephesians 1:7-12) (2 Corinthians 7:1) (Hebrews 12:14) (Numbers 6:24-26). Will that include you one day – and me?
Grace and Peace ×
THE HOPE OF
🙌 GLORY 🙏🏼